• by February 11, 2005

IT SEEMS EVERYONE WANTS TO MESS WITH THIS PART OF TEXAS - In media planning parlance, Houston is the seventh largest media market in the U.S. But lately, it's become something more: a laboratory for the future of media audience measurement. Until this year, it was just like any other major market, getting TV ratings from Nielsen's old school diary/meter system, and radio ratings from Arbitron's old-old school diary system. That has all changed, of course, as Nielsen prepares to roll out its controversial local people meter system in the market, one that in some ways is more ethnically diverse than any launched to date. It also just so happens to be the market where erstwhile Nielsen partner Arbitron is rolling out a make-or-break field test of its promising new portable people meters, a system that would be capable of simultaneously measuring both TV and radio ratings, and one which Nielsen retains an option to joint venture with Arbitron on, but which it has yet to support in the Houston market.

Amid all these new measurement antics, who would imagine yet another player entering the media ratings market in Houston, but that's just what the Riff hears Navigauge is about to do. The timing and choice of market is interesting, because it will give Houstonians, as well as national marketers and agencies, the opportunity to see how three entirely different new media measurement technologies operate side-by-side in a major marketplace: Nielsen's LPMs, which require respondents to push buttons; Arbitron's PPMs, which require them to carry around a device and "dock" it at day's end; and Navigauge's passive, in-car metering system. The rollouts will give the industry the opportunity to see how the full spectrum of active and passive measurement technologies impact respondents and media audience estimates. "We know from speaking with advertisers and broadcasters, that there is a void to fill when it comes to providing truly passive and objective radio audio measurement," says Tim Cobb, CEO of Navigauge, which has been testing its system in Atlanta, but which now has plans to introduce to five of the top markets.

But what makes Navigauge really intriguing is that its approach, which simply installs passive hardware into the cars of its panel, has absolutely no impact on the media usage behavior. It also has the potential to measure things far beyond simple radio broadcasts, including outdoor advertising exposure, as well as the retail locations consumers go to buy products, and whether those trips followed exposure to a radio, or outdoor ad.

But the company is not stopping there. Navigauge, which is based on a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology capable of sending and receiving data from mobile users, plans to add "ports" for future data streams. What those new data streams will be, we can only imagine. But at least someone is thinking about measuring them. And amazingly, it's neither Nielsen nor Arbitron.